Words that change you...

Ok so a few months ago I joined the world of blogging because sometimes I have so much to say and not enough patient ears to listen to me, not enough time in the day to express how I feel, or just not the right words or timing to express how I am feeling.... I don't blog too often probably because LIFE just keeps going and between being a full time working mom and other things I am involved in and things I would like to be involved in there just does not seem to be enough time to sit down and get out all my thoughts. BUT there are days like today where I just feel the urge and I start to share. So my sharing today is about all the wonderfully emotional, life altering, kind, sweet and loving blogger friends that I have that also blog! I have two in particular that I read tonight through tears....that just touched me. How amazing is it that your thoughts, pain, love, and typed words can touch someone so far away physically but so close to your heart. I sometimes read my friends blogs and think, WOW, I have not been through enough pain or life circumstances to complain about anything or to blog about the simplicities of my life but then.... Tonight we went to our tax lady to do our 2011 taxes and the first thing she asked us was "How was your year?" This poor woman had no idea that Jesse and I had a horrendous life changing and yet God filled year. But we answered her honestly by saying the truth. Usually when people ask you those kind of questions they don't really want to hear the truth but I felt a peace about speaking the truth. IT WAS A TOUGH YEAR!!!!! .....I wouldn't be where I am today in my walk with the Lord if it wasn't for the past year that I endured with his strength. Many of the terrible things that happened last year I won't speak about publicly but a few pieces of the tough stuff includes the tragic death of a dear cousin, putting my daughter through hell by no choice of my own (as no parent would want to chose for their child) and then the death of my father-in-law (which was a huge bag of emotional turmoil in itself!!!) However, I was able to find the Lord in all of it and to be completely truthful it took me awhile to find him in all of it. So now is the next step in our adventure of life that I shared with my fellow bloggers late last year...we are in the process of becoming foster parents to adopt. I am crazy right? I always said "That is why I am the caseworker and you are the foster parent" to my foster parents that I worked with. I NEVER thought I would be able to do their job! I was just good at my job! HA, yeah that was God chuckling to himself saying, just wait Tonya I am giving you skills for things you don't know are to come!!! My favorite verse Jeremiah 29:11-12 "For I know what I have planned for you, says the Lord. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, I will hear your prayers." God's plan is bigger then we can imagine and I am slowly learning to trust that! So now I need to trust that no matter how scared I am about what he is going to do in my life that he will be there to walk me through it! Easier said then done but I am going to try my best. TRUST, TRUST, TRUST.....I am going to keep repeating that to myself every time my heart skips a beat because I am scared!

Merry Christmas from the Weaver's

Customize your own free newsletter

Grace on my Heart

I borrowed this from a friend on FB

Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted. A little girl said, 'I know all about Adoption, 'I was adopted..' 'What does it mean to be adopted?', asked another child. 'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'

I have been in the field of foster care and adoption since 2001.  I have learned a lot and have grown more than I can describe!  But I used to say "that is why I am the caseworker and you are the foster parent" because I always admired what my foster parents did day to day in all their work.  I NEVER thought I would have the heart, parenting abilities and patience to be a foster or adoptive parent. I also felt that as the years went by I KNEW too much about the workings of foster care to be able to adopt through the foster care system.

Then I became a parent....wow, I can not believe what parenting will do to you and how GOD changes your heart and mind for his purposes! So now Jesse and I want more children and for many reasons, some of which are our own mistakes, we are having trouble having more biological children.  Again, I NEVER thought I would say I would be interested in foster care and adoption.  I used to say "God will have to lay a lot of GRACE on my heart to bring me to foster care to adopt."  Hmmmm....ask and you will receive!  HA!  I didn't know I was asking!

But here I am, God laid tons of Grace on my heart and has brought me to the place in my life that scares the crap out of me but gives me hope that I can do anything THROUGH HIM!!!!

Part of the grace that God laid on my heart was through the cute puppy that lays on my lap as I type this! Lucy, who we rescued/adopted last new year.  She is sweet and lovable but has her challenges and you can tell she was not always treated right, which is so sad.

Another piece of God's grace was through my own daughter, Savannah!  She has gone through trauma and tragedy over the past two years and we have been there for her every step of the way. But it has been such a difficult road.  However, on this road God has taught me many things, one small thing was that I have the ability to support my child through trauma. Which of course added more Grace to my heart.  It got me thinking if I can help my child through trauma, couldn't I do it for other children???

More pieces of God's grace came through my job.  I have had the privilege of working with some FANTASTIC and wonderful foster and adoptive parents that have given me hope that I can do it too.  One family that adopted a very special little girl. This little girl has blossomed beyond belief because of her wonderful adoptive family and GOD!  Then there was another professional that I worked with, she stepped up and became a foster parent. However, she has had to endure a lot of CRAP in the foster care system but keeps going strong and shows endless love to her foster child.  Both of these families have continued to give me hope, hope to what could be the best and most challenging decision of our lives!!!

There have been many other small doses of Grace that God has laid that I do not have enough time or room to tell you about, but trust me when I say it has been a lot of Grace!  I also have to give my wonderful and supportive family and close friends credit for helping me see the Grace that God has laid on me!

Through these many things, I can no longer ignore or try to avoid the big piles of GRACE that God has laid on my heart...So last night we got our application and are going to start the process of becoming foster parents.  WOW! As much as I know SO much about the foster care/adoption field it still scares me to be starting this process, but if I haven't learned it by now, GOD will show me the way!

My favorite bible verse sums it up for me.....Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know what I have planned for you,' says the LORD. 'I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."

God willing we will be expanding our family!

Birthdays

So what does a birthday mean to you?  Well according to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "A birthday is a day or anniversary where a person celebrates his or her date of birth. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage." So to everyone their birthday means something different.  For me, I like to celebrate!  I am happy that I have been able to enjoy my family and friends for another year of my life, so celebrating is how I show my thankfulness for that! (Recently though, through the many trials in my life, I feel like this years' birthday is also sad because of who I miss that I don't get to continue to celebrate life with here on earth. Celebrating helps me through the pain too!)   So celebrating to me, being a social person, means spending time with as many of the people that are special to me as possible in one day or within a few days!  So what is the easiest way to do that...exactly a birthday party!  And who better to throw a birthday party the way I like it then me, right? 

Well over the years I have been teased by some about how ridiculous it is that I have a birthday party "for myself!" Just this morning my dear wonderful brother commented "I thought throwing yourself a birthday party stopped at 10!" (Later to find out that he sent me that text just because he knew he would get a rise out of me, which worked!!!!)   But it got me thinking, am I being selfish for wanting a "party" on my birthday? Aren't birthday's suppose to be a day for that person?  Who else are birthdays for except for the person who's day it is??? I mean it is just one day! Is it so horrible that I want to celebrate it and celebrate it with the ones I love???? I mean, I don't expect presents, or singing!  Having a cake is nice, but I don't mind bringing my own to share! So no I don't think so, but for some reason it was really bothering me that others did seem to think it was selfish. 

I think over the years, I have struggled with this concept of being "too selfish" especially around my birthday and to deal with it I have tried to squander my desires for my birthday and try to be as low key as possible. But this year I finally put some thought into it and realized that everyone is different! LOL Ok so I didn't JUST realize that now, but I finally put it together that because everyone is different, that means everyone handles their birthday differently.  Some people want to ignore it, not have it happen or some even want their birthdays to go backwards! So they don't want to celebrate it and they are ok with letting it go by just like any other day. BUT  that is not me, that is not the kind of person I am.  Does that mean I am more selfish than others, no I don't think so.  I think it just means that I am expressing myself the way I want to on my birthday and there is nothing wrong with that!!! And for anyone that knows me at all, you know that I express how I am feeling on just about everything! (trust me not everything, there are some things I keep to myself!)   I also realized that I like to celebrate others' birthday's too, even if they don't!   I take pride in finding  birthday presents for others that I know that they will love and I try to make sure not to forget a birthday of someone close to me!  I especially like to sing "Happy Birthday" to the ones I love on their birthday!  Unfortunately, if you are close to me and you want to forget your birthday, I probably won't let you, Sorry!

So I will let my brother let his birthday pass by just like any other day for himself (although I certainly will wish him Happy Birthday!) but I am also going to be ok with myself that I like to celebrate my birthday!   Luckily as much as my brother likes to harass me, he also made my job of planning my own "party" easier this year by having a Clam/Corn Bake with my family on my birthday!  So guess what, I get to have dinner with my whole family who I am closest too on my birthday!  I couldn't have done it better myself!  Thanks Paul!!! :)

Happy Birthday to me and my 33 wonderful years of learning, growing, enjoying, laughing, crying and just being who I am!!!!  Thank you Lord for giving me all that I am and all that I have!!!! :)  I am very blessed.

My first blog

I have followed numerous friends' blogs and thought it was neat how they could write so well what their thoughts and feelings were.  I have never thought of myself as a writer, which is ironic b/c most of what I do at my job is writing!
But I have had so many things going on in my life lately, that I feel like my thoughts are spinning and I can't always talk about all of them to everyone. Which, I know what you are thinking is surprising to you because that is what I do...I talk to everyone about what I am thinking. But just imagine if you can that there is more in my head then what comes out of my mouth! SHOCKING, I know right!  I have struggled in the past and am struggling right now with those spinning thoughts...and then I wondered...should I blog to help me get out what is in my mind?   So here I am trying it.  We will see what happens from here. 

I had a dream last night...a nice peaceful one that made me feel good when I woke up this morning. Which is unusual right now because most of my dreams have been full of turmoil, anger, frustration, and confrontation.  But last night I had a dream that my dear sweet cousin came back to our world from heaven to set things straight. To explain to her family what went wrong. I remember knowing that she was only here with us on earth for a short time before she went back to heaven. (similar to Jesus rising again!) I remember talking to her and apologizing that I was not very close to her as a cousin but that she was dear to me. (As most of my cousins are dear to me in one way or another. ) But she reassured me that she knew I cared. I also asked if she was able to see her family and talk to them and again she reassured me that she had.  Unfortunately, I don't remember more specifics about my talk with her, all I remember is I felt at peace after I talked to her. As dreams are strange sometimes...it ended with her driving off in a sporty little car with her hair blowing in the wind and me smiling at her and feeling like all was well.

Does this dream help take all the hurt away with the loss of my cousin or the other losses and trials I am dealing with in life right now, of course not. But it did give me hope.   Hope that even though right now I don't feel like moving on with life, even though life around me is moving on, I will eventually move on and slowly heal. God will be with me every step of the way bringing me hope and reassurance. His love given to me through my wonderful family and friends that mean so much to me. 

Thank you Lord for continuing to show me hope in these difficult times and giving me the family and friends I need to show me your love and hope.


Well for my first blog...I already feel a little bit better!   I might do this more often then I thought! :)